Monthly Archives: January 2015

The knife’s edge, as it were, of daily Stoic life – “Is this a thing within my control, or without?” The Rule, it is the discriminator between the realm of choice and the realm of the Indifferents, the external things not under our control.

Morning Text for Reflection:
The whole divine economy is pervaded by Providence. Even the vagaries of chance have their place in Nature’s scheme; that is, in the intricate tapestry of the ordinances of Providence. Providence is the source from which all things flow; and allied with it is Necessity, and the welfare of the universe. You yourself are a part of that universe; and for any one of nature’s parts, that which is assigned to it by the World-Nature or helps it keep it in being is good. Moreover, what keeps the whole world in being is Change: not merely change of the basic elements, but also change of the larger formations they compose. On these thoughts rest content, and ever hold them as principles. (Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 2.3, Penguin Classics Translation)

Morning Text for Reflection:
Be like the headland on which the waves break constantly, which still stands firm while the foaming waters are put to rest around it. ‘It is my bad luck that this has happened to me! On the contrary, say, ‘It is my good luck that, although this has happened to me, I can bear it without getting upset, neither crushed by the present nor afraid of the future.’ (Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 4.49)

Try to move men by persuasion; yet act against their will if the principles of justice so direct. But if someone uses force to obstruct you, then take a different line; resign yourself without a pang, and turn the obstacle into an opportunity for the exercise of some other virtue. Your attempt was always subject to reservations, remember; you were not aiming at the impossible. At what, then? Simply at making the attempt itself. In this you succeeded; and with that the object of your existence is attained.
(Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 6.50, Penguin Classics Translation)

Morning Text for Reflection:
Early in the morning, when you are finding it hard to wake up, hold this thought in your mind: ‘I am getting up to do the work of a human being. Do I still resent it, if I am going out to do what I was born for and for which I was brought into the world? Or was I framed for this, to lie under the bedclothes and keep myself warm?’ ‘But this is more pleasant’. So were you born for pleasure: in general were you born for feeling or for affection? Don’t you see the plants, the little sparrows, the ants, the spiders, the bees doing their own work, and playing their part in making up an ordered world. And then are you unwilling to do the work of a human being? Won’t you run to do what is in line with your nature? (Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 5.1)

Salvete, Omnes!

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